1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relate to a property management apparatus and a property management method to be applied to management of the lost properties of passengers getting on and getting off a vehicle, for example. In the present invention, any change of devices in possession by a user who gets on or gets off, for example, a vehicle is detected by comparing the devices detected by a wireless communication at the time of getting on or getting off, thereby enabling the easy and sure prevention of any personal belongings of the passenger from being lost or left without constantly monitoring them.
The present invention further relates to a property management apparatus and a property management method that can be utilized for discovering any lost property or personal belongings at any place where a user stops such as, for example, a home, a vehicle, an office or the like. The present invention is able to detect a user's properties at any place where the user is most likely to stop and enable the long and sure detection of a place where the user loses the properties by summing up the detection results in time series.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, various methods for preventing various kinds of devices from being lost or left by utilizing wireless communication among such devices have been proposed. One of those proposed methods is a method of detecting any left portable devices or the like by maintaining a wireless communication with the devices at a constant interval for monitoring departure of such devices from the wireless communication zone (for example, see Patent Document 1 listed below).
However, since the management in these methods is carried out by making a judgment if any property which is the subject for management has left based on the existence of the response to the wireless communication, it is basically necessary to constantly monitor the property which is the subject for management. In a case of devices which are subjects for management operate with a battery, there is a problem that the devices cannot be used continuously over a longer period of time because of the battery life.
Also, various methods of detecting the lost properties by utilizing wireless communication between devices have been conventionally proposed. That is, it is proposed to identify specifically the location where the lost property is in existence based on a response from an ID tag attached to the lost property (for example, see Patent Document 2 listed below).
However, such method of detecting the lost property encountered a problem that the lost property could be detected only within the range of detecting the response from the ID tag. This was the reason why the conventional detection method for lost property was practically insufficient.
It is, therefore, convenient if a method can easily and surely prevent personal belongings from being lost or left without constantly monitoring them.
Also, in a case when any property is actually lost, it is conventional to recall a user's behaviors based on the user's memories to confirm where the user actually lost the property, and the user is most likely to contact a lost-and-found section of the particular place to make sure if the lost property is reported. That is, if the user realized that he left the property, for example, in a train, the user would contact the railway company. In this manner, the user might not be able to specifically identify where he lost the property, but the chance of discovering the lost property might be significantly improved if he could easily and surely confirm where he actually lost the property.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-24108
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-215848